The Circular Future of the Nordics
What will our future look like? Will the circular economy be realised and will we be enjoying life in a vivid, healthy society? Or will business as usual drive us into a future of despair? Where we will end up is all about which actions we take today.
Two different paths into the future were illustrated by Zuzana Malinkovičová of DTU Skylab and Cataly(c)st and Keira Dignan of ReGeneration 2030 during the session “Circular Future of the Nordics” at Nordic Circular Summit 2022.
We can see signs of the Nordics heading towards two very different futures: on one hand, we’re a very innovative region—but at the same time we are one of the worst when it comes to resource use per capita. We have a growing number of circular startups but, at the same time, we have a growing number of fast fashion purchases. We have more wind power but also more fossil gas usage, more bicycles but also more SUVs—and so on.
In the first of the two scenarios, the dystopian path, we will reach 1.5 degrees of global warming already in 2029 and 3 degrees by 2045, resulting in the collapse of the Arctic ice sheet and the sea levels rising by 10 metres. By 2070, our grandchildren “can look forward to a future of pandemics, poverty, disease and war”.
In the brighter scenario, however, fossil fuel infrastructure is completely shut down by 2025, the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) replaces GDP as our measure of wealth by 2027, global warming will hit 1.5 degrees by 2035 but will dip below it again by 2060. In 2070, our grandchildren “can have a higher quality of life with almost one-eighth of [today’s] carbon footprint”.
Both of these futures are possible. However, right now, the first scenario is much more likely. But if we take bold action and redesign our economic system, we have a good chance of arriving at our preferable future.
A thought experiment for imagining your circular life in 2030
The session’s moderator, Floris van der Marel from Cataly(c)st, presented a thought experiment for imagining what it will be like.
Take a moment and reflect on it yourself:
Imagine it is the year 2030 and we have achieved a circular economy. All of our hard work has paid off, we got our message across and our ideas have been translated into actions. Imagine a day in your life:
In the morning: Where do you wake up? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What things do you have available for your morning rituals? What is new? What is no longer there? What kind of food are you having for breakfast? Where does it come from? In what kind of setting are you enjoying your breakfast?
During the day: Imagine you go out and move around in the area where you live. You’ll see various messages and billboards and other people moving around. What messages do you see? How do you relate to the people around you? How do you relate to nature around you? Does your work still exist? Will it be something else? What kind of projects are you working on?
In the evening: You may have dinner and do some activities. Imagine the neighbourhood where you’re at. What can you buy? What can’t you buy? What are you encouraged to do by the messaging you see? What kind of leisure is available?
According to Ugnė Budriūnaitė, who is the chairperson of ReGeneration 2030, our circular future food will be sustainable, nutritious and locally grown, our cities will be green and most people will choose to travel by green public transport. There are no advertisements or campaigns that urge us to buy more stuff and we have enough time for both work and leisure activities.
Bettina Schwalm, who is a partner at Next Agents, adds that technologies like blockchain will enable a lot more transparency and a common awareness of how limited our resources are. We no longer need to argue for circularity and can put our energy into making the circular economy even better, rather than establishing it in the first place.
Another perspective, given by Lára Kristín Þorvaldsdóttir, who is a Youth Advisor at Cataly(c)st, is that we will have slowed down as a society: we will work less, spend more time with family and in contact with nature. The environmental impact will be included in product prices, resulting in us taking care of our things better, often preferring to borrow rather than own.
What do you think? Does that sound like the circular future you imagined?
What will become obsolete and what will emerge in a circular society?
Some sectors will need to be shut down if we want to achieve a desirable future, maybe due to stubborn beliefs regarding profitability or dependency on structures that we will not allow to exist. Which sectors have been unwilling, unable or too late to change by 2030? And what sectors, instruments and systems need to emerge?
Kim Hjerrild from Design & Lifestyle Cluster believes that it is the private banking sector that will eventually go away. In our future system, we will need to be more transparent about where values are produced and who is controlling and extracting value from production and consumption. Neoliberalism and capitalism aren’t suitable solutions for the complex world that we’re entering. The banking system needs to be disrupted and, in its place, we will see increasing collaboration between market forces, governments and civil society.
What is most important according to Kristoffer Lundholm, who is Head of Sustainability at Sally EY Doberman, is to cultivate despair, a sense of urgency that things need to change drastically.
“It sounds bad but if we don’t have discontent with the way things work now, why change?”
However, despair alone won’t enable change, and perhaps an even bigger crisis than the climate crisis or biodiversity crisis is the crisis of imagination.
“If you look at Hollywood, there are tons of movies about how the world ends, but very few good storytelling pieces on how it will look when it looks perfect. If we’re asking our business leaders, entrepreneurs and politicians to do something radically different that we cannot imagine, how are we going to build it? We need to imagine it first.”
Bettina Schwarm adds that informed imagination can help us understand the fragility of the planet and what’s at stake. Reaching that understanding can be a trigger for a necessary behavioural change—both at a societal and business level.
Other important factors for being able to achieve a circular economy are policies and economic incentives. Lára Kristín Þorvaldsdóttir points out that we need a much faster rate of investments in circularity and is optimistic that policies like the EU Taxonomy will help to eradicate greenwashing and circular washing. Jakob Lagander, from 3stepIT, agrees and adds that businesses need to understand that circularity and profitability can go hand in hand.
“We have to create a pull effect to really show that there’s growth, profitability and revenue to be earned by businesses moving in the right direction.”
What actions will make us reach the goal of a circular future?
When reflecting on which actions we will look back at and conclude that they were key factors for successfully transitioning to a circular economy, the panel of experts had clear answers.
Bettina Schwarm believes that it will be the fact that we have used critical assessment rather than let our work be based on assumptions. We also need to understand trends and shifts that happen outside of the realm of circularity, for example within religion, culture and society as a whole, and use that understanding for empowering people with the necessary knowledge and skills.
The key success factor, according to Kristoffer Lundholm, will be that we’ve been able to visualise and manifest a better future that people want to strive for.
“What we have to create must be so much better. It has to be magnetic. People should go: ‘Ah! I want this!’ We can’t expect 10 billion people to slowly come to a sensation of ‘I should change my lifestyle’”.
Jakob Lagander thinks that we will look back and conclude that we’ve managed to feel satisfied with what we have and started taking better care of it. Technological equipment, for example, is something that all businesses have in common and a key success factor will be when all actors along the value chain will collaborate for extending product lifetime, maximising use and reuse rather than just keep producing new technology.
Ugnė Budriūnaitė believes that the reason why we are successful in reaching a circular future will be that we made sure the voices of young people, climate activists and grassroots were heard, that their messages were spread and that those who were educated passed on their knowledge to others, whereas Kim Hjerrild states that a key to our success will be that we begin to value art and cultural experiences as well as personal and social development.
What do you think is the success factor for reaching a circular economy?
Going back to our thought experiment, when you sit there in 2030 and look back, what do you think were the things we did that spurred the circular transition? What was it that made all of us start producing, using and consuming things more sustainably? What were the determining factors that finally made “waste” a term of the past?
What are the things that you are going to do today and tomorrow that will make that change happen?
This article is based on the learning from the ‘Circular Future of the Nordics’ session at the Nordic Circular Summit 2022. Watch the full session with Zuzana Malinkovičová, Keira Dignan, Floris van der Marel, Ugnė Budriūnaitė, Bettina Schwalm, Lára Kristín Þorvaldsdóttir, Kim Hjerrild, Kristoffer Lundholm and Jakob Lagander.
Written by Sofia Sundström (Cradlenet)
